The Good Ole Days of Football A tribute to the days of blood, guts and dance-free touchdowns

Ohhhh....Old days, good times I remember, Gold days, days I'll always treasure....Take me back, to a world gone away....Good memories, seems like yesterday....", goes the Chicago song.

Ah yes, the good ole days. As Archie and Edith sang, "girls were girls and men were men". Those wonderful times before gold hoop earrings, endzone hula dances and post-touchdown hugfests took over. When scoring and great plays were expected of professional players and not celebrated as if the winning lotto ticket had been found. I'm not that old a fella but times sure have changed in the NFL. Call me old-fashioned but what troubles me is that I know in my heart that somewhere, somehow, in some dimly lit locker room, some tough guy has asked, "Do these earrings go with this jersey?" or "Does this wiggle make my butt look fat?" Who can picture Unitas saying, "Hang on a sec there Weeb, I can't get this hoop to slide in" or "How 'bout if I hit Berry in the corner of the end zone, then do the foxtrot"? Oxymorons, I tell you. A bunch of big, tough guys doing their Madonna and RuPaul impressions in public. Jack Lambert, one of the roughest middle linebackers of all time, once said of quarterbacks, "maybe they should put dresses on them". Well Jack, we're getting there. Perhaps George Carlin needs to update his classic "football vs. baseball" routine, for little did he know that the golden era of football would one day refer to jewelry. Could the pioneers of the NFL have envisioned that the league would some day institute a rule outlawing certain "dances"? Believe you me, Vince Lombardi would be doing the flip. I don't want to take my kids to the Hall of Fame some day only to overhear some proud dad say, "Son, that there is the earring that Deion Sanders wore in the Super Bowl" or "Looky here, this is Mark Gastineau, inventor of the sack dance". Pink Floyd once sang, "When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse, out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now, the child is grown, the dream is gone". I don't ask for much. Perhaps the NFL could steal a page from one of Major League Baseball's "turn back the clock" promotions and leave the dangly earwear and goose-stepping on the shelf for a week. Take it away Archie and Edith...."Those were the days".

"He's a dancer...and he sparkles and he shines..."
--Crack the Sky, 1975

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